Andy, a PSNI officer in his 30s, was shot and critically wounded by a dissident Republican during the past 18 months. He is now back at work but remains under threat. For his safety, the Guardian has omitted certain key details that might identify the attack.

When I heard the news about the two young fellas in Armagh on Sunday I felt terribly sad. But then I heard the news about Stephen [Constable Stephen Carroll]. It almost makes you go cold. I shut down for a very short period of time.

I had no warning at all when I was shot. The individual walked past my car, turned around towards me and started firing.

The fight or flight instinct turned on, and thankfully I fell back on to my training. I was boxed in in traffic, but I had left myself enough room for manuoevre, and I had room, just, to make my way out and to safety. I don't know at which point I was hit, but I remember trying to drive and suddenly not really being able to. The whole incident would have taken five, 10 seconds.

I was hit twice, and very seriously injured by one of the rounds. An awful lot of blood was lost, and it was quite close for a while. I have very little recollection of that period, being taken to one hospital, moved to another one.

It sounds strange to say, but a lot of the most difficult things are the smaller details that happen after an incident like that.

I was now under threat, so to negate any further attacks, we had to move. We had established ourselves; we had our dream house, a good social life, a lot of friends.

You are suddenly forced out of that to a completely new location where you can't make new friends, because you are afraid to talk to people. You are very conscious that people know who you are, especially if you are carrying a physical injury, as I now do. You have to remember, if you're asked what happened, what you said to that person the last time around.

That's the difficulty when you're trying to establish a new life. You can't tell people why you left the old one. My wife had to leave her job, and she had that whole dilemma - what would she tell her boss about why she had to leave her last job? There's a lot of trust lost.

There was never any doubt that I would go back to work. Physically, it took me under a year to recover. There's a lot of other damage, though, that people don't know about, maybe they don't want to know.

When you find yourself having a conversation with someone and you're suddenly in tears for no reason. It is very strange. That's when your strength of character comes in, I think. I'm lucky because I'm kind of stubborn and I'm not going to be beaten, and my wife is the same.

Of course you have times ... everybody has Monday morning blues. But you just have to get on with it. And I'm proud of what I have done. I have never done harm. My job is to catch criminals and to bring people to court, and I am proud of that. And If I can do anything to help other people, I will do that.

When I joined the police, it was still the old RUC, just, though most of my service has been with the PSNI. So I wasn't a police officer through the worst years of the Troubles, though I have served with a lot of people who did the job through the bad times.

We all knew the threat wasn't over. I have been asked did I think it would happen to me. The answer is, I knew it could happen to me, but I didn't think it would. I took the attitude, if people are intent on doing you harm, they will do you harm, regardless of your job or your religion.